Sony announces Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 large sensor enthusiast compact

Sony has announced the Cyber-shot DSC-RX100, an enthusiast compact camera based around a 20MP 1" CMOS sensor. It features a 28-100mm equivalent lens with F1.8-4.9 aperture range and image stabilization and is the first Sony compact to capture Raw files. It can shoot 1080p60 and capture 17MP (16:9 crop) stills simultaneously. It features a lens control dial and a 3:2 aspect ratio sensor (the same proportions as most DSLRs). It's also the first Sony compact to feature the company's 'WhiteMagic' LCD technology, promising a brighter or lower-power display. The RX100 will be available from July at a price of around $649.

Striking the ultimate balance of form and function, the stylish, aluminium-built RX100 camera inherits many advanced imaging features from Sony’s α range of A-mount and E-mount cameras, delivering beautiful still images, crisp full HD videos and a level of manual control and creativity unmatched by any other camera of its size.

“This camera is ideal for travel, portraits or street photography, delivering impressive results in a variety of lighting conditions with an intuitive, customizable control interface,” said Yosuke Tomoda, director of the Cyber-shot business at Sony Electronics. “It’s a perfect step-up model for point and shoot users not interested in larger DSLR or compact system cameras, and also an outstanding choice for enthusiasts who may already own a large DSLR and are looking for a high-quality, pocket-sized ‘all-in-one’ second camera.”

At the heart of the Cyber-shot RX100 is the world’s first 1.0-inch type Exmor® CMOS sensor with a resolution of 20.2 effective megapixels. Specially developed by Sony, the sensor has an area that’s approximately four times larger than the 1/2.3-type sensors in traditional point-and-shoot cameras. The sensor’s larger area takes in more light while capturing content, resulting in beautiful, detail-packed images and Full HD movie clips with very low noise.

The larger sensor is partnered with an exceptionally bright Carl Zeiss® Vario-Sonnar T* fixed lens with 3.6x optical zoom range. In contrast to standard point-and-shoot cameras, it has a wide F1.8 maximum aperture to let in additional light and complement the resolving power of the larger sensor.

Similar to high-performance DSLR optics, the lens features seven- bladed circular aperture. This makes it easy to produce images with subjects in sharp focus against a smoothly-blurred, beautifully defocused background. The lens also features an Advanced Aspherical (AA) lens element that contributes to the camera’s extremely compact dimensions without sacrificing optical zoom performance or resolution.

Newly optimized to complement the 1.0-inch type sensor and lens, the camera’s powerful BIONZ® image processor maximizes shooting response times while helping assure exceptionally clean, natural images. It also extends sensitivity right up to ISO 25600 (using Multi Frame Noise Reduction), allowing for exceptionally clear handheld images in low light conditions. To capture fast-moving subjects, the RX100 camera can also shoot at up to 10 frames per second (in full resolution) and has high-speed autofocus that locks onto a subject in as quickly as 0.13 seconds (depends on scene and lighting conditions).

The new RX100 camera features a high-resolution 3-inch 1,229k dot Xtra Fine LCD™ display and also adds a new feature: WhiteMagic™ technology. This uses additional white pixels to boost screen brightness, allowing users to see subtle details and tones on the screen in all types of shooting environments, including outdoors in bright sunlight.

For making manual adjustments while shooting both still images and movies, the new camera has a smooth control ring around the lens body, which can be used to alter exposure, zoom, creative picture effects and a variety of other customizable functions. Additionally, frequently used functions can be assigned to the Fn (function) button for instant access, and the Memory Recall feature can store up to three groups of customized shooting settings based on user preference.

Similar to a DSLR-style interface, there’s a choice of auto and manual focus modes on the Cyber-shot RX100 camera for enhanced image control. For those that prefer focusing manually, MF Assist magnifies images to simplify fine adjustments, and there’s also a pro-style peaking function that highlights sharply-focused areas of the image on screen.

The RX100 camera offers a generous choice of artistic options to expand creative shooting possibilities. It includes the option for six different creative styles and a variety of popular picture effects including Toy Camera, Partial Color, HDR Painting and several others, most of which can be previewed directly on screen before shooting.

The new Cyber-shot features Auto Portrait Framing – a feature found on Sony’s latest α range of A-mount and E-mount cameras -- making it simple to create sharp, perfectly framed portraits. This unique feature automatically detects faces in a scene, crops the picture accordingly creates a tighter, pro-style composition at full resolution. Both the original and cropped photo are saved for review.

New accessories include a spare battery, dedicated carrying case and a battery charger designed to complement to the new camera.

Pricing and Availability

The Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 digital camera will be available this July for about $650. The camera and accessories will be available at Sony retail stores (www.store.sony.com) and other authorized dealers nationwide.

@carlbraun: OK, but you belong to a 1% minority of p&s users that buy external flash. I have external flash on my DSLR and it makes the camera a lot bigger and heavier, so I use it only if I really have to. If internal flash on my compact is not sufficient, I take the DSLR. Even if I had external flash on the compact, I wouldn´t take it out with the camera (I travel either light, i.e. only with small compact, or I take my DSLR bag with everything).

And @iudex, who says, "I have NEVER seen anyone shooting with a compact external flash": Whether or not YOU have seen anyone do this is, quite frankly, irrelevant.

Secondly, there are several high end compacts on the market that sport hot shoes: the Canon S95, the Nikon P7000. Panasonic, Olympus, Leica. They all make compacts with a hotshoes. And thirdly--those who actually use the hotshoe are NOT attaching flashes to it. That would be rather ridiculous, agreed. Rather, they are attaching small radio triggers which control one or more flashes.

I have owned several high-end compacts and the external flash was really the last thing I needed. BTW on my recent Canon S100 (a 400 EUR highend compact) there´s no hot shoe.My experience is definitely more relevant than your opinion (I am not saying something I just made up, but what I witnessed). Around me I see a lot of photographers using external flashes, but solely on DSLRs. Maybe in DC people normally use external accesories to small compacts, but not ine Europe.

Impressive video specifications with native 1080p60 and 24p. Sony has a great video camera pedigree but it makes you wonder why other cameras, like the OM-D, couldn't at least approach some of the nice video specifications of this new Sony.

"20 MP at such sensor is useless"Just shoot at 12Mp or one of the several other sizes you can choose from!20MP is very useful when you want to crop, say, a group shot to isolate a person or face...!IMHO Sony has again hit a home run with this little camera, it's not perfect but seems quite ahead of the competition.

The sensor is tiny . When I read large sensor I thought, ah, 36x24mm compact at last, but no, large here means tiny, and in a huge body- big enough for a 36x24mm sensor, and an inbuilt 64Gb SD type memory, and a viewfinder, so I'll keep on with my DSLR until Sony do that. They will eventually, they can now, but like Olympus Nikon Canon and Samsung etc, they just love the way you will go on "upgrading" to NO purpose at all.

Get back to reality. The sensor is big in comparison to typical enthusiast compact, which is 1/1,7". And in this aspect it really is big: its 2,5x bigger than average. Despite that Sony is smaller than such typical compacts (e.g. Oly XZ-1). If it had FF sensor and a viewfinder it would be as big as a DSLR. So have your FF DSLR (and try to put it in your pocket ;-)

Tiny Canon SD1200- definitely tinier than even the Canon S100 and XZ-1- managed to sport a quite useful zooming optical viewfinder. The internet buzz that gets repeated that a viewfinder would take up lots of real estate is a fable and an excuse. I call absence of any kind of viewfinder simply a cost savings by the manufacturer with bogus excuses.

I definitely agree. I have just printed 20x30 cm pictures with 10MPix resolution (I do not even shoot at the highest resolution of my DSLR) and see no problem. I have never printed bigger pictures, in reality most of the prints are 10x15 cm. Why would I need 20 MP?

To crop, and get sharper pictures at the same size (especially when viewing images on the screen). Price obviously is a little bit worse IQ at highest ISOs, but let's face it: most of photos are made at ISO100-200 and this compact got brighter lens then most of the competition making it more capable in low-light.

People really need to stop complaining about too many pixels. It may have been a problem 5 years ago, it isn't any more. The only downside is larger files, and there are several upsides, especially in terms of post processing.

Looked over at Imaging Resource, Sony RX100 Technical Info, but couldn't see mentioning of a ND filter. Haven't seen a filter thread or adapter for the Sony RX100 either. Don't know the smallest aperture it uses, f/11 perhaps?

Thanks for the helpfulness! We can only hope it does! My xz-1 does, but I forget to turn it off a lot of the times....that's why I prefer a higher shutter. Though the nd's are usually 2 stop. Either one would be good! Lol

When Nikon released the 1 series I thought why Sony (who produces the sensor of it) doesn't talk about a high end compact - although I know that Nikon has for those sensors 1/2 year sole commercial explotation rights when using it.

Now i know. Rhe RX100 looks great, offers featurewise almost everything we need (at least on paper). BUT - no external flash possible, and the integrated one looks awkward than the NEX7' one.... (meaning more or less useless)

Unfortunately Sony goes for this "hierarchy Pixel amount", so it was in their understanding to put more pixel on it than the HX20 has. 14MP would have been a perfect choice.

Presumably it will anyhow for sure have a better picture quality than any other compact cam. Maybe the G1X will be close or better but for this camera class performance is a big issue and there the RX100 is far ahead.

The focal magnification factor is 2.73x and the pixel size is 2.4µm, compared to 3.4µm for the Aptina sensor in Nikon 1 System.

It's also a Sony CMOS Sensor "Exmor", using the "Column-Parallel A/D Conversion Technique", which will put the Canon G1X to shame, having Canon's in comparison somewhat outdated sensor technology.

The teorethical performance difference between Sony RX100 and Canon G1X is 1.17EV. The brighter (f/1.8-f/4.9) Zeiss lens of the Sony, compared to the slower (F2.8-5.8) in Canon G1X, alone leverages the performance handicap with respect to the sensor size. (Canon's f/2.8 isn't better than f/1.9 in Sony's equivalent.)

Additionally, with Sony's anticipated better sensor technology, both better read out noise and better dynamic range, this camera seems like a winner.

With constantly improving sensor technology, more MP does not automatically mean worse low-light performance. Look at the D800 at 36mp, which only 2 DSLRs, the D4 and D3s have better low-light, high ISO performance.

Actually, yes - higher pixel count does end up with lower low-light performance. Look at the D800 at 36MP, then compare it to the D4 of the same generation sensor with fewer pixels - it blows it away. Even the last-generation sensor in the D3s is better than the sensor in the D800 for low light.

To say that this Sony 20MP is better than a camera from X years ago and because of that discount the degradation due to too many pixels is disingenuous. A 10MP enthusiast camera (even 12) would have given better low iso results.

Props to Sony for getting bright glass on this thing, at least at the wide end.

Seems like a good P&S, looks more apealing than the G1X or Nikon 1 if you don't to buy more lenses.Good screen, fast AF, high burst rate, good zoom range, bright lens (at the wide end), relatively compact (much smaller/lighter than G1X, and etc.

And 100 points worse portability, not even saying about the effort of jumping between lenses, issues with dust, etc.Still - in day-to-day usage m4/3 will be able to provide better images, but... even better images can be made with any DSLR.

-What will you do with sensor dust on your fixed lens camera? It will show up sooner or later, like it does on the present 1/1.7" sensor luxury compacts. None to my knowledge are using ultrasonic filterings on a P&S.

-On a CSC, you can yourself remove the lens and even do a wet cleaning of the sensor if absolute necessay.

But I do agree with portability, that's the reason for the popularity of the LX5, XZ-1, S90/S95 cameras in the past. RX100 definitely runs to the top of this group.

it REALLY HAS TO be 4 times (sensor wise) better that little brother hx9v... 'cause images from the latest are quite disappointing. Also hope they implemented AE-lock function and manual focus in video mode... which is the best use you can give the hx9v and that the "new" record button works (in the hx9v you need squirrel nails). For the price they could have redesign the shitty tripod mount. In my experience, the bracketing range is not enough.

Being a 1/3 sensor at 20 mpix means that Sony is at this moment able to manage a FF at 60 mpix, so let's wait for the next step higher in pixel race bullsh... I a wait still to see a development in mid pixel count sensors, 12 -16 mpix, sensors that can handle just any situation and deliver shots in reasonable sizes. i do not see why we have to play with giant files, shots as big as the whole wall of the living room and loss of time in rework. We go higher and higher and develop new things all time, useless things for the most, and if a mid sized chip is pushed in quality, he appears in a body the common mortal will not want and not be able to pay for. If Olympus can put on the market an affordable small body, with Pro features and weather sealing, why can't the others do that?

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